Preconference visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum
15 September 2025 (Monday)
A special guided tour including areas not available to the public, including Block 10 with an introduction by Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Lang.
Limited number of places available.
6:00 Departure from Kraków
9:00–12:30 Guided tour of Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum
14:30–16:00 “Negatives of memory. Labyrinths” — artwork exhibition by Marian Kołodziej, Auschwitz survivor
ca. 18:00 Return to Kraków
Conference
16 September 2025 (Tuesday)
8:00 Registration
Opening
9:00–9:30
Welcome address
Piotr Gajewski (Poland)
Keynote speech: Cogito ergo sum (Descartes)
Leon Weintraub (Sweden) – Guest of Honor, survivor of Nazi German concentration camps
Session I
9:30-10:10
Opening lecture: Physician leadership in Nazi euthanasia and sterilization campaigns: How did it go so wrong? What can we learn?
Mildred Solomon (Harvard Medical School, USA)
10:10-10:30
Nazi medical crimes: Escalation of racist ideology, economic rationality, or crimes of opportunity?
Thorsten Wagner (Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics, USA)
10:30-10:50
Nazi medical crimes, professional interests, and economy: The origins of the Declaration of Helsinki
Volker Roelcke (Institute of the History of Medicine, Giessen University, Germany)
10:50-11:10
Research as a tool to protect vulnerable populations: Lessons learned from the Declaration of Helsinki
Karla Childers (Head of bioethics at Johnson & Johnson, USA)
11:10-11:30
Panel discussion
11:30-11:50 Refreshment break
Session II
11:50-12:10
Electroconvulsive therapy in Auschwitz: Medical innovation and human experimentation
Herwig Czech (Medical University of Vienna, Austria)
12:10-12:30
“…This would serve for the benefit of the whole family…”. Brain research on the victims of child euthanasia in Lower Silesia
Kamila Uzarczyk (Medical University of Wrocław, Poland)
12:30-12:50
Hygiene Institut der Waffen-SS und Polizei Auschwitz O/S: What do we know about the main laboratory in KL Auschwitz
Teresa Wontor-Cichy (State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oświęcim, Poland)
12:50-13:10
From Jan Sehn to the Institute of National Remembrance: Criminal medicine in Auschwitz Concentration Camp in historical research and prosecution proceedings
Filip Gańczak (Institute of National Remembrance, Poland)
13:10-13:30
Panel discussion
13:30-14:00 Lunch break
Session III
14:00-14:20
On dealing with guilt: The difficult path of confronting the Nazi euthanasia crimes from 1945 to the present day
Michael von Cranach (Germany)
14:20-14:40
Confronting eugenics and scientific racism
Marius Turda (Oxford Brookes University, UK)
14:40-15:00
Suffering and the moral orientation of presence
Jay R. Malone (Washington University School of Medicine, USA)
15:00-15:20
Legal and ethical dilemmas of Nazi eugenic propaganda online in an age of disinformation
Katarzyna du Vall (Jagiellonian University, Kraków)
15:20-15:40
Teaching professional ethics against the backdrop of Nazi medicine: Potentials, challenges, best practice
Thorsten Wagner (Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics, USA)
15:40-16:00
Panel discussion
Workshops
17 September 2025 (Wednesday)
Will be announced soon.
